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Fumiko Hayashi

Fumiko Hayashi(林 芙美子,Hayashi Fumiko
?, December 31, 1903 or 1904 (Japanese sources
disagree on the birth year) - June 28, 1951) was a Japanesenovelist and poet. When
Hayashi was seven, her mother ran away with a manager of her
common-law husband's store, and afterwards the three worked in Kyūshū as itinerant
merchants.

After graduating from high school in 1922, Hayashi moved to Tokyo with a lover and lived with
several men until settling into marriage with the painter Rokubin
Tezuka (手塚 緑敏
?) in 1926.

Many of her works revolve around themes of free spirited women
and troubled relationships. One of her best-known works is
Hōrōki (translated into English as "Vagabond's Song" or
"Vagabond's Diary") (放浪記, 1927), which was adapted
into the anime Wandering Days.
Another is her late novel Ukigumo (Floating
Clouds, 1951), which was made into a movie by Mikio Naruse in
1955.

Hayashi's work is notable as well for its feminist themes. She was
later to face criticism for accepting sponsored-trips by the
Japanese military government to occupied China, from where she
reported positively on Japanese administration.

Until the 1980s, "women's literature" (joryu bungaku)
was considered a separate category from other modern Japanese
literature. It was critically disparaged as popular but too
sentimental. But Ericson's (1997) translations and analysis of the
immensely popular Hōrōki and Suisen (Narcissus)
suggest that Hayashi's appeal is rooted in the clarity with which
she conveys the humanity not just of women, but also others on the
underside of Japanese society.